The invention relates generally to toy guns and projectile launchers, and more particularly to such devices which incorporate a figurine into the structure of the device to simulate a vehicle, creature or other figure, and to such devices adapted to discharge water or other projectiles from multiple ports.
Dart guns are known in the art in which the body of the gun is in the form of an aircraft. In such guns a dart barrel is typically formed in the nose of the aircraft fuselage. A handle at the rear of the fuselage allows the user to draw back the plunger of an internally carried air pump. A pistol grip and trigger attached to the underside of the fuselage allow the user to hold and discharge the toy. The toy is identical in function and manner of operation to a typical single shot dart gun, except that its body is shaped like an aircraft rather than a gun.
Also known in the art are water guns concealed in, disguised as, or otherwise incorporating figurines. Examples are found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,667,419 (Spector), U.S. Pat. No. 5,318,202 (D'Andrade), U.S. Pat. No. 5,305,918 (D'Andrade), U.S. Pat. No. 4,703,892 (Nadel), and U.S. Pat. No. 4,630,756 (Amici et al.).
A common characteristic of the above referenced dart guns and water guns is they are limited to discharging projectile matter from a single discharge port.
Also known in the art are air operated projectile launchers, such as dart guns, which are capable of launching projectiles sequentially from multiple discharge ports. Typically this involves the use of a multiple barrel magazine which can be rotated or otherwise moved on the frame of the gun to sequentially align the individual barrels with the air outlet of an air pump. For the purpose of such alignment with the barrels, the air pump outlet is fixed in position on the gun frame. Examples of this structure are found in U.S. Pat. No. 2,237,678 (Lohr et al.). A variation on this structure is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,535,729 (Griffin et al.) wherein a magazine is held in a stationary position on the frame of a dart gun, and an air pump is rotated to sequentially align an air outlet with the barrels of the magazine.
A common characteristic of such multi-shot devices is the grouping of the barrels in a uniform pattern, immediately adjacent one another, in a magazine which is movably or releasably attached to the body. Commonly used magazine patterns include evenly spaced circular and linear arrays of barrels. Such arrangements are necessary in prior art devices to allow movable barrels to sequentially align with a stationary air outlet, or vice versa, through simple incremental motions. Another common characteristic of such devices is the proximity of the barrels to the air pump. Pumps and barrels in these and other multi-shot air guns are aligned and positioned adjacent to one another because it is efficient, both as to layout and construction of the gun and as to delivery of air from pump to barrel. Adherence to such conventions and the incorporation of such characteristics has limited prior art development of multiple barrel, air powered toy guns to generally conventional layouts, e.g., a magazine comprising a circular or linear array of barrels carried at the front end of a gun in direct contact with the cylinder of an air pump.